


Change of Perspective

by tiny_mudkip



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bodyswap, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff and Humor, Soulmates, can be read as x reader bc there is little to no description, gendered pronouns tho, honestly the idea popped into my head and just wouldnt leave, martha jones is Tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24606169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiny_mudkip/pseuds/tiny_mudkip
Summary: Marlene wakes up in a body that is not her own, with a woman who claims to be called Martha Jones and a missing Doctor. Apparently, there's a whole universe waiting to be discovered, but first, they have to sort the whole body swapping thing out.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Original Female Character(s), Tenth Doctor/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Change of Perspective

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about this all day so, why not write it? The story is written with an original character I made up, but honestly, there isn't any blatant physical description, so you can read it as yourself if you want. I hope you like it! :)

Marlene knew something was not right the moment she woke up. For starters, her chest felt weird – no, her _h_ _eart_ felt weird – and her head hurt a little. She slowly opened her eyes, registering turquoise-colored walls and bright light flooding the place exactly two seconds before an unfamiliar face invaded her field of vision. 

“Doctor, are you alright? You passed out in the TARDIS, she brought us here! Oh, I didn’t know what to do, so I took you into my house...” The woman started rambling, worry etched all over her face. Marlene frowned. 

“What...?” She choked out a noise of surprise. That was _not_ her voice. In fact, that was a man’s voice, deep and strange. Her hands shook as she brought them up towards her face, which also felt out of place as she touched it. 

“Doctor?” That woman, whoever she was, kept invading her personal space, eyebrows knit together and flailing hands when she spoke. 

“I’m not a doctor.” Marlene managed to rasp out, still shocked at the sound of her voice. 

There was a beat of silence and then the other woman stepped back with an uneasy laugh. 

“Very funny Doctor, but stop playing games. I was really worried!” 

Slowly, Marlene tried to get into a sitting position. She had been lying in a grey sofa in what looked like an apartment’s living room, all completely unfamiliar. Even her legs looked foreign, she realized, staring at the long limbs clad in pin-striped pants. A flex of her arms told her she was wearing a full pin-striped suit, with a shirt and tie beneath the jacket. 

“Okay... this is not right.” Her voice was surprisingly calm. Marlene could not stop noticing the rumbling on her chest at that point, almost as if her heart had an echo. 

“What isn’t?” The woman asked. She looked distrustful, but also worried. 

Marlene looked up at her, noticing that she seemed to be about her same age, with dark hair gathered up in a ponytail and wearing regular clothes. 

"What's your name?"

The woman arched one eyebrow, crossing her arms, but still answered. 

“It’s me, Doctor. Martha Jones.” 

“Alright, Martha Jones...” Marlene hesitated before standing up, noticing how she felt taller and growing a bit dizzy at the change of perspective. “Do you happen to own a mirror?” 

* * *

Half a city away, in a cramped college dorm, the Doctor woke up. He, too, felt like something was not quite right, squinting in the semi-darkness and trying to make out the blurry shapes around him. Why was his eyesight not acting properly? 

“Martha?” He called out. 

Except his voice sounded completely _wrong_. Too high-pitched for a man, soft and with a bit of an accent. The Doctor abruptly moved into a sitting position, pushing the covers off him and into the floor, feeling his chest tightening and heart racing. Heart. In singular. 

Was he... _human_? 

“Martha?!” His voice sounded panicked, and he took a total of two steps before noticing some glasses in the nightstand, putting them on and noticing an instant improvement of his eyesight. “This is...” 

Not wanting to confirm his worst suspicions, the Doctor found a light switch and turned it on, then looked at the nearest mirror... and an unfamiliar face looked back. 

“Maybe I’ve regenerated,” he rambled to himself, running a hand through his now shoulder-length hair, “but that doesn’t explain the human physiology... no, that’s something else.” 

A knock on the door startled him. Tripping over some discarded shoes in the floor, the Doctor managed to open the door, finding a young woman right on the other side with a curious look on her face. 

“Are you alright Marls? I heard you yelling something.” 

“I-It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Just to check, though... where are we?” The Doctor blurted out, letting out a nervous laugh at the expression on the other woman’s face. 

“University of London, of course. Are you hangover?” 

“No... thank you, bye.” He closed the door on her face and paced back into the room, again running a hand through his hair. 

First of all, he needed to figure out who he was, and why had it happened, even though he already had an idea for the last part. Not two hours before, he and Martha had gone to the planet Sore N326, also known as the planet of Soulmates, and he might have gotten a little too close to its core... According to the planet’s legend, its inhabitants were influenced by the core and, once in their lives, swapped bodies with their most compatible pair, or soulmate. 

The Doctor had not believed any of that, of course, but now that he was stuck in a stranger’s body, well, it was his best bet. 

“Okay... let’s see who you are.” He walked around the room until he noticed the notebook on the desk, closed but with a name scribbled on its very first page. 

_This notebook belongs to: Marlene Jane Brooks._

A quick look through the pages told him that Marlene was a college student, likely a senior, and that she was doing something related to foreign languages, if the Arabic exercises were something to go by. Even though his species had changed, the Doctor was glad to know that he retained his intelligence and ability to speak several languages. 

Vocabulary exercises sure said a lot about a person. 

“Right, Marlene. Let’s see how we can find me.” 

* * *

Meanwhile, Martha Jones was panicking, and Marlene was currently too busy staring at her new face in the mirror. She was in a man’s body, a thin, tall man with – admittedly – good-looking features and _sideburns._ Someone who, apparently, was called the Doctor, if Martha’s words were to be trusted, and whose hair defied gravity. 

Oh, and he had two hearts. 

“You’re telling me, you’re not the Doctor.” Said Martha for the third time, looking her up and down. 

“Yes.” Marlene finally tore her eyes off the mirror and stared at her. “My name’s Marlene, I’m twenty-three and I have never met this man in my life.” 

Martha made a noise, then dragged her hand across her face. “Ugh, this is bad. I told him, don’t stand near the core, don’t touch that, this is weird... but no, the Doctor always knows best. Well, breaking news, he doesn’t!” 

It had to be a dream, Marlene thought. She would wake up at any minute and Lauren would laugh in the morning when she told her over breakfast. In fact, if she pinched herself in the arm, she might even stop dreaming right away! Which would be ideal, considering the unpleasant situation she was stuck into. 

Marlene pinched her arm, hard, and winced. Nothing happened. 

“This is not a dream.” She muttered in astonishment. 

“Of course it isn’t! We have to find the Doctor, come on.” Martha seemed to have calmed down a little, stopping all that arm-waving and instead picking up a phone and thrusting it into Marlene’s – or rather, the Doctor’s – hands. “Call yourself.” 

Relieved to have found such simple solution, Marlene quickly dialed her own number and held the phone closer to her ear, surprised of how her hearing seemed to be better than ever. Her eyesight too, which was a novelty. 

“He’s not picking up.” She said once it turned to voicemail, handing the phone back to Martha. 

“Oh, I hate him. I’m sure he has gone off to investigate or something... just great.” 

Marlene stared as Martha opened the blue box that stood in the middle of the room, which in her opinion was an awful decoration, but to each their own, and gaped at the sight of her disappearing inside. 

Surely, it could not be that big? 

After a moment’s hesitation, she followed Martha, opening the door and finding a huge room inside. Way too big, for such a small box. 

“No. No, this is it. I’m not doing this. I’m changing back.” Marlene said hurriedly, stepping out of the box and stumbling over her own feet. 

Martha stepped out of the box with a coat on her arm and a strange device – it looked like a screwdriver, in a way, but not quite. She tossed the long coat at Marlene with a small grin and kept the other item. 

“Put it on before we go, or he’ll whine about it later.” 

* * *

The Doctor, much like Martha said, had gone off to investigate the place he was at. Apparently, Marlene shared a two-room sort of apartment-slash-dorm with another woman, whose name he still did not know. After changing out of the pajamas and putting on some jeans, T-shirt and sneakers he found lying around, the Doctor deemed himself presentable enough to step outside. 

Indeed, he was at the University of London, as the signs told him. Stepping outside the campus, the Doctor found himself in a part of the city he did not recognize, observing everything while thinking about what to do next. The last thing he remembered, after leaving Sore N326 in a hurry because its inhabitants had not taken kindly to him messing with their core, was passing out inside the TARDIS. 

“Of course, that’s it!” He realized, giving himself a slap in the forehead that hurt more than usual. Human bodies were so fragile. “She must have taken us to the last place we went to – Martha’s house.” 

So, Martha was now stuck with a complete stranger in a Timelord’s body. The Doctor hoped she was alright. 

“Well, now I just have to go and sort things out.” He muttered to himself, ignoring the weird looks people on the street were throwing at him. 

Except, there was a problem. He had no idea nor a way to get to Martha’s house from where he was, stranded without TARDIS, sonic screwdriver or psychic paper. Even though the situation was not necessarily dangerous – after all, he was supposed to have changed with his soulmate or most compatible partner, whoever she was –, the Doctor felt the need to turn things back as soon as possible. 

His chest was tightening again, and he found it rather bothersome. 

“I better head back to the dorms, then.” He decided. Maybe Marlene had a mobile phone or something to track Martha down. 

* * *

Marlene and Martha stood in front of the college dorm, the latter taking everything in with a raised eyebrow. 

“You live here?” 

“Yeah,” she shrugged, “scholarship.” 

They had taken the subway with the aid of a strange blank card that Martha kept calling ‘psychic paper’, and now were in the familiar campus, ready to find the rogue Doctor. Marlene had grown somewhat used to the gangly limbs and the billowing coat, but she was dying to be inside her own body again. 

Martha’s phone rung twice and she quickly picked it up, showing her the caller ID: it was Marlene’s number. 

“Hello?” She answered, breaking into a smile at the voice in the other side. “Doctor! Where are you?” 

As the two of them talked on the phone, Marlene stood awkwardly to the side, putting her hands in her pants’ pockets. A familiar person exited the building and she felt compelled to call her name, but thankfully realized Lauren would not recognize her in that state. The less people involved, the better. 

“Okay, we’re going to meet at that café.” Said Martha after hanging up, pointing to a nearby place that Marlene liked to frequent sometimes. It was almost empty at that time of day. 

“Why not at my room?” She questioned, looking briefly at the building. 

“Do you think they’ll let us in without questions?” 

Martha had a point, she had to admit. The two of them walked towards the café, choosing a table at the far back and sitting down uneasily. Marlene felt weird, asking for her usual order without bantering with the waiter, being in such a familiar place but with a foreign body. 

The door opened with a jingle and Marlene turned to look at herself entering – well, the Doctor in her body entering. It was surreal, seeing herself but knowing that it was not her. The whole situation was out of place, and Marlene had still not discarded the dream option. A very long, very real dream. 

“Well... hello.” The Doctor said, sitting down and smiling at them. “Martha Jones, I’ve missed you.” 

Despite her earlier words, Martha smiled. 

“I could say the same, Doctor.” 

“Let’s get this over with.” Marlene interjected, leaning forward on the table and supporting herself on her elbows. “I don’t know who you are, why you have two hearts or how is this even happening, but I want my body back.” 

The Doctor arched his eyebrows, a strange look on Marlene’s face, but the smile did not disappear. 

“According to the Sorean legend, we should just touch each other and everything would be sorted...” He hummed, extending out a hand. “What do you say?” 

Marlene shook his hand without hesitation, feeling a sudden warmth and a tingling feeling coursing through her body, followed by a blinding light. Then, nothing. 

Tentatively, she opened her eyes, meeting a pair of brown eyes right in front of her, followed by a masculine face. It had worked. 

“That went well.” The Doctor beamed at Martha and then at Marlene, who stood up abruptly. 

“Yeah, alright.” She stepped back from the table, feeling like she was about to either faint or enter a state of shock. “Don’t contact me ever again.” 

And with that, the Doctor’s soulmate ran out of the cafeteria, leaving a very surprised Timelord behind and hoping not to meet him ever again. 

Nevertheless, the universe seemed to have other plans. 

* * *

One year and a half after what Marlene liked to call ‘the Incident’ in her head, she stood in the middle of a Moroccan street market, hearing her guide speak with the shop vendor but not paying attention to anything they were saying. 

It had been such a nice day, she thought, everything had gone smoothly. Up until the moment her eyes had been drawn to a blue box in an alleyway, not too far from where they stood. Marlene had cursed it in her mind, knowing immediately _where_ she had seen it before, and what had transpired that day. 

If the Doctor swapped bodies with her again, she was going to jump off a cliff. 

Her train of thought was suddenly interrupted by someone crashing against her, hard, and a wave of apologies in a masculine voice. 

Marlene looked up and met brown eyes. Familiar brown eyes. 

“It’s you.” 

The Doctor stared back at her, recognition clear on his face, as well as shock and surprise. 

“Marlene?” 

There was a pause, and then she felt him grab her hand and tug her forward, away from the market – was there yelling in the distance? She could not tell. 

“Listen, there’s no time to explain,” the Doctor looked at her, a glint in his eyes, “just... _run_.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Just a brief note: I have literally never been to the University of London, so I'm sorry for any inaccuracies. Also, this was written in a whim and English isn't my first language so if you see any blatant mistakes please let me know!


End file.
